Brothers Day
by BatboyBlogger
Summary: Tim Drake gets drafted to babysit Damian Wayne, with unexpected results


"No no no, please no don't make me, Dick," Tim Drake-Wayne whined into the phone.

Dick Grayson laughed into the other end of the phone line, "oh come one Timmy he's not that bad, you're making it sound like I'm making you take on Mr. Freeze on Christmas eve."

Tim rolled his eyes, "you know he's worse than Freeze, worse than the Riddler, just the worst!"

Tim almost, almost felt bad as Dick let out a long suffering sigh over the line, "I know Tim, I'm sorry, but Bruce is in London and Alfred is with him, so…"

"So why don't you watch him? He likes you"

"I would, you know I would, but Babs and I have been planning this get away for months now, the tickets are non-refundable."

"Arrrg, no this can not be happening, I'm not babysitting the brat! I mean why does Damian even need a babysitter? He knows 56 ways to kill a man but he can't tuck himself in? Are you kidding, Dick?"

"He can take care of himself, sure. That's what we're worried about. Bruce and I don't want him to go out on his own, which he will do if he's left alone, that's why he needs a sitter, and considering what happened the last time you two went out together, we thought you'd rather stay in?"

Tim rubbed his shoulder remembering the fight between him and Damian two months ago the last time Red Robin and Robin had patrolled together.

"But if Bruce and you are out of town, and me and little bird are grounded at the manor who's gonna watch Gotham, Dick?"

"Cass and Steph are handling it for the night."

"Okay, so why didn't you ask one of them to handle Damian for the night and let me out to watch the city?"

"Oh I asked, they both flatly refused."

"Hey hey I refuse! Flatly even!"

Dick's laughter echoed out of the phone, "sorry little bro, doesn't mean that much coming from you, you don't scare me the way Cass does."

"Dick come on, you know he hates me."

"He doesn't hate you Timbo, he's just… not good at expressing himself."

"No, he's very good at expressing his wish to murder me. He hates me, Dick."

"Okay maybe a little, but give him a chance to change his mind, he is part of the family"

With that they hung up the phone.

Tim looked out his boarding school dorm window toward Gotham and Wayne manor.

"What have I gotten my self into?'"

At 8pm Tim pulled his bike up to the front of the manor. Normally, he didn't use Wayne Manor's imposing front doors; most of the time, he went in through the cave or snuck in a window. However, he figured if Damian was laying in wait to jump him, or had set up paint buckets full of ball bearings to swing at his head, it'd be at his normal entrances.

Tim slowly cracked open the door, no trip wire, nor flying spears nor 75 pounds of murderous 10 year old came flying out of the darken entry way toward him. He slowly stepped into the manor, the rug held him up not giving way into any tiger trap. He let out a slow sigh and started looking for the brat.

Damian wasn't in the library, the breakfast room, the sitting room, the parlor, the conservatory, the red room, the green room, the blue room, or the front office, it wasn't till Tim reached the grand dinning room that he heard the tinny sounds for some one speaking from a TV, coming from the kitchen. He hadn't been in the kitchen much, there were lots of rooms in the Manor he'd never seen and he wasn't much of a cook.

Tim pushed open the door to the kitchen, a room of white tiles and shiny stainless steel, to find Damian sitting on his knees on a stool to reach the counter top with something in front of him.

"Um, is that a chicken?" Tim asked pointing at the raw bird in front of Damian.

"Tt - it's a Cornish game hen, Drake."

"Um, okay that doesn't really clear anything up little D… Why do you have a Corny game hawk?"

"Well it's not for its artistic value. I'm cooking it, Drake."

Tim opened his mouth to say something, when a high pitched half British woman's voice cried out from an iPad propped up on the counter: "Today on the French chief!"

"Dami? Is that Julia Child?"

"Yes."

Tim blinked slowly. ' _Okay deal with that detail later,_ ' he thought. "You cook?"

"Yes."

"Um…"

"It involves stabbing meat with sharp knives, and sometimes there's a blow torch"

"Ah, that makes sense… so, what're we cooking?"

"I am cooking a roasted game hen with glazed root vegetables, could you pass me the thyme?"

"Oh, it's 8:15" Tim said, looking at his phone.

Damian rolled his eyes "Tt-. T-H-Y-M-E, Drake, the herb?"

"Oh, um, what's it look like?"

"The small green shaker on the counter over there," Damian pointed as he pored a yellow liquid into a measuring cup.

From there, Damian pointed Tim around the kitchen, ordering him to crop vegetables and fetch things. Julia Child's voice rises and falls in the background filling the silence. Tim thought that the silence felt a lot less hostile than normal, he didn't feel nervous with Damian with knives, or at least not very nervous.

After about an hour of cooking, Damian ordered him out of the kitchen to the dinner room so he can finish up. Tim wondered into the dinning room, finding that two spots had already been set. Normally, Alfred would have set the seats at either end of the table facing each other across the long table. Damian however had set the seat at the head of the table and the one right next to it on the right. He slid into the seat at the head of the table just to see what the kid will do.

Damian pushed his way out of the kitchen carrying the small roast bird covered in six different vegetables. He only raised an eyebrow before setting the meal directly in front of Tim and placing a salad in front of himself.

"Wait you're not having any?" Tim asked, looking at Damian in shock.

"Tt. Duh, Drake, I'm a vegetarian."

"Soooo you cooked this whole meal just for me?"

Damian looked thoughtful for a second, "you and Titus, I guess."

They ate in silence and Tim worried about the kid poisoning him, but that seemed too underhanded even for Damian, and the food tasted too good to worry about it.

"So what's for dessert, little bird?"

Damian looked horrified, "Drake, we are professional crime fighters, we can't just stuff sugars and fats into our bodies and expect to be in top shape."

"I thought I'd at least ask; I'm assuming the Boy Wonder doesn't have a bed time?"

"Yes the feared Robin, son of the Batman, has to be in bed by 10 o'clock with a glass of warm milk, that sounds likely doesn't it Drake?"

"Wanna watch some of Bruce's bad black and white movies and make fun of him for liking that crap?"

"Sounds like an enjoyable way to spend the rest of the night."

They made their way to the home theater and queued up some classic monster movies. Eating popcorn, Tim cracked jokes and some times Damian smiled. Around midnight the kid got up and left the room, maybe to use the bathroom, Tim thought. The kid slipped back into the room holding a small plate with something that looked like lemon meringue pie without the meringue. Damian held the plate straight out at Tim.

"What is that?" Tim said, staring at the dessert.

"It's a lemon tart, Drake"

"Okay…"

"It's for you."

"Okay… why?"

"Happy brothers' day."

"What?"

"Look at the time."

Tim pulled out his phone and checked the time, it had just rolled over to midnight, and then he saw the date: "It's my adoption day?"

"Yep, the day we became brothers."

"But you hate me."

The boy shrugged in a way that Tim couldn't interpret, "I've been looking for an excuse to make a lemon tart for a month."

Tim took it from him and smiled, "thanks little bird."

"Tt."


End file.
